Same-sex marriage:Those committed to equality for gays and lesbians should press for the right to full civil marriage, rather than a limited law on partnership rights, a symposium on the subject was told.
Grainne Healy, co-chairwoman of KAL, a group campaigning for full marriage rights, said: "No halfway house is acceptable. It is unequal and discriminatory." KAL was formed to support the legal challenge of Dr Katherine Zappone and Dr Ann-Marie Gilligan seeking recognition of their Canadian marriage, which failed in the High Court. The group has renamed itself Marriage Equality and is campaigning for the right to marry for same-sex couples.
Ms Healy said that this case was now awaiting a date from the Supreme Court, and it was prejudging the Supreme Court decision to state that permitting civil marriage was unconstitutional.
"Marriage is what is needed, not another Irish solution to an Irish problem. It appears that the intention of the Government is to produce legislation which will not come anywhere near full civil unions. It appears it will only offer limited rights. We are looking at an extremely conservative and limited Bill."
Niall Crowley, chief executive of the Equality Authority, which in 2002 proposed legislating for civil partnerships, said if partnership rights were to be based on a commitment to equality they had to include access to civil marriage for gay and lesbian couples.
"This will address the current economic discrimination, but most importantly will achieve status and standing, which is crucial if we are to address homophobia in our society," he said.
Jan O'Sullivan, Labour spokeswoman on health, told the symposium her party wanted full equality, not second-class rights. The party's Civil Union Bill was drafted in the context of the Constitution, and its legal advice said it was constitutional.
The Bill, defeated by the Government last October, provided for full equivalence between civil partnerships for same-sex couples and marriage, including the right to adopt children, she said.
John Fisher, co-director of ARC International, a gay and lesbian human rights organisation, said that in Canada the introduction of same-sex civil marriage followed court challenges to the existing law in three provinces, and a widespread public debate.
He said a turning point came when one of the couples, who were lesbians, entered the court in Ontario, accompanied by the nine-year-old son of one of them. One television journalist asked the boy what the case meant to him and he replied: "I think after this no one will be able to say I don't have a real family."
The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the law denying marriage to same-sex couples was unconstitutional, and ruled that marriages could be contracted right away. The government then introduced a civil marriage Bill.
Mr Fisher said that the debate was around marriage as an institution and its place in society. For some it was a vehicle for rights and responsibilities, while for others it gave social and, sometimes, religious recognition to a relationship. Rights and responsibilities could be granted without marriage, but status and recognition required civil marriage.